• Critical-Hits Studios
    • Criminals Card Game
    • Sentinel Comics: the Roleplaying Game
  • Downloads & Tools
    • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
    • Drinking D&D 2010
    • Drinking D&D 2011
    • Fiasco Playset: “Alma Monster”
    • MODOK’s 11 for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
    • Refuge In Audacity RPG
    • Strange New Worlds RPG
  • Guides
    • Gamma World
    • Guide to 4e Accessories
    • Guide to Gaming DVDs
    • Skill Challenges
  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Critical Hits

Everything tabletop gaming since 2005

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Columns
    • Dire Flailings
    • Dungeonomics
    • Musings of the Chatty DM
    • Pain of Publication
    • The Architect DM
  • Podcasts
    • Critical Hits Podcast
    • Dungeon Master Guys Podcast
  • Roleplaying Games
  • Tabletop Games
  • Game Hacks & Content
  • Video Games
You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits

My Love Letter to “Mage: The Ascension”

January 4, 2011 by Dave

Dave looks back at the 2nd edition of “Mage: The Ascension,” how he got into the game, why it never stuck as a campaign, and how it rewired his teenage brain.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: mage: the ascension, old world of darkness, white wolf, world of darkness

Critical Bits for the week ending 2011-01-02

January 2, 2011 by Gato the News Robot

From the Archives:: 4th Edition Round Table: Classes and Other Topics http://bit.ly/frXP1w #charchive # RT @fredhicks: Dresden Files, Freemarket, Gamma World, Apocalypse World, more on MTV Geek's Top 10 RPGs of 2010: http://tinyurl.com/26drgrs # Nearly $800 raised to help the Child's Play charity. Can you help us, @obsidianportal, & @gfbrobot hit $2000 by Friday? http://bit.ly/i52elV […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

My RPG New Year’s Top 7 Wish List

December 31, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

I got everything I wanted for Christmas, but I also have some hopes and wishes for the New Year. And here they are.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games

Editor-in-Chief’s 2011 Blogolutions

December 30, 2010 by Dave

As I mentioned in our 5th anniversary post, it’s been a pretty big year for us. Now, however, that means I have a group of great editors, writers and readers who are looking to me for what’s next. These are just some of the ideas that have passed by me in the past year that I might try and implement in the next year.

Filed Under: Editorial

The Architect DM: Open Spaces, Plazas, and Holidays

December 29, 2010 by Bartoneus

It’s the end of the year and what most of us would call the “Holiday Season”, and I have instead decided to bring up a relevant topic that is quite fitting for this time of year. I’m sure there are several published pieces and posts online about incorporating holidays into your RPG game, but I’d like to discuss them with a specific focus on the location designs you use in your game. I’d also like to focus on one specific holiday trope that you’ve probably considered for your own game – if there’s a holiday/special event, the party is most likely there to experience it.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: advice, architect dm, design, holiday, holidays, open spaces, plaza, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games

Vanir’s New Year’s Gaming Resolutions (2011 Edition)

December 28, 2010 by Vanir

Since the new year is almost upon us, I decided perhaps I should give a look to how I would like the entertainment portion of my life to function over the next year.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Humor, Video Games Tagged With: 2011, new year, resolution

Depression & Dungeons & Dragons

December 27, 2010 by dixontrimline

When it comes to depression, real, actual, honest, sky-is-falling-and-life-is-ending depression, it’s a matter of bits of your brain actually missing. It’s a physical, medical, miserable condition, where life around you stays exactly the same way, but you have lost your ability to perceive it correctly.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games

Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-12-26

December 26, 2010 by Gato the News Robot

From the Archives:: Why You Should Be Excited for Starcraft 2 http://bit.ly/enKgAa #charchive # Now Rolling: Gamma-Tastic by @dixontrimline, a brief recap of A Taste of Gamma World at @labyrinthdc http://bit.ly/i55KAR # Donate to the Red Cross, be entered into a chance to win a free custom illustration by famed fantasy artist Ben Wootten http://bit.ly/dRfRg4 […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Carrot Design, Part 1: A Freelancer’s Challenge, From Needs to Rewards

December 23, 2010 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty, on the heels of his last article, explores the challenges of designing new D&D 4e material for gaming magazines and how a writer needs to dodge many pitfalls to deliver a quality, useful article.

Filed Under: Freelance Writing, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: d&d 4e, game design, kobold quarterly, needs, pathfinder, Player Motivations, Rewards

The Architect DM: Fantasy Technology & Development

December 22, 2010 by Bartoneus

In my last post I talked about how the abandonment of locations and their resettlement can be used to influence the way we design our RPG worlds. The discussion led into the idea of technologies that could be developed and subsequently lost along with a civilization, only to be rediscovered at a later date by different cultures. I know for a fact that many people have a mental disconnect when it comes to thinking of “technology” and their typical Dungeons & Dragons game world. I often think of technology in an RPG along the same lines as psionics, there seem to be a lot of people who love to use them and a lot of people who avoid using them altogether.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: advice, architect dm, D&D, development, Dungeons and Dragons, firearms, Roleplaying Games, roleplaying games, technology, world building

« Previous Page
Next Page »

About the Author

  • Dave

    Dave "The Game" Chalker is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Critical Hits. Since 2005, he has been bringing readers game news and advice, as well as editing nearly everything published here. He is the designer of the Origins Award-winning Get Bit!, a freelance designer and developer, son of a science fiction author, and a Master of Arts. He lives in MD with e and at least three dogs.

    Email: dave@critical-hits.com

    Follow me:

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Archives

CC License

All articles and comments posted posted on the site (but not the products for sale) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. References to trademarks and copywritten material are included for review and commentary use only and are not intended as any kind of challenge.

Recent Comments

  • fogus: The best things and stuff of 2024 on Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Routinely Itemised: RPGs #145 on Review: The Magus
  • The Chatty DM on Review: The Magus
  • Linnaeus on Review: The Magus
  • 13th Age: Indexing Truths — Critical Hits on The Horizon Conspiracy

Contact The Staff

Critical Hits staff can be reached via the contact information on their individual staff pages and in their articles. If you want to reach our senior staff, email staff @ critical-hits.com. We get sent a lot of email, so we can't promise we'll be able to respond to everything.

Recent Posts

  • Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Review: The Magus
  • Hope in the Dark Heart of Evil is Not a Plan
  • Chatty on Games #1: Dorf Romantik
  • The Infinity Current: Adventure 0

Top Posts & Pages

  • Home
  • The 5x5 Method Compendium
  • Dungeons & Dragons "Monster Manual" Preview: The Bulette!
  • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
  • On Mid-Medieval Economics, Murder Hoboing and 100gp
  • "The Eversink Post Office" - An Unofficial Supplement for Swords of the Serpentine
  • Finally a manual for the rest of them!
  • Dave Chalker AKA Dave The Game
  • How to Compare Birds to Fish
  • The Incense War: a Story of Price Discovery, Mayhem, and Lust

Copyright © 2026 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in